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'^ CARDINAL VAUGHN, in advocacy of an 

alliance between America and Great Britain 

V for the promotion of peace and civilization, 

and on his justification of Great Britain in 

the South African War. t^^^^^^SS^ 



^>it: Cones Recewco 
OCT 13 1900 

Copyright wtry 

SECOND COPY. 

0«'<iver«ri to 

6ftOt« WVISION, 

OCT 24 1900 



Copyright 1900 

BY WILLIAM KENNEDY 

Appleton. Wis. 



oshkosh, wis. 
The Times Publishing Company, 
1900. 



These lines, liastiiy and crudely written, 

and if, at times, apparently severe, written 

withont hate or malice. 1 dedicate to my 

boy, now dead, to whom, in life, all of them, 

except those which speak of him, were 

dictated. 

WILLIAM KENNEDY. 

Appleton, Wis., Oct. loth. 1900. 



T° 



O CARDINAL VAUGHN, in advocacy of an 
alliance between America and Great Britain 
for the promotion of peace and civilization, 
and on his justification of Great Britain in 
the South African War, ^^^^^^^^^ 



I. 

The altar at which you kneel is Divine; 
But then the face of God will always shine, 
On any man that leads a good man's life, 
Although he misses here the holy shrine. 

11. 

Your predecessor was of English mould, 
A famous, massive man within the fold; 
The heart in him was warm until he died; 
The life within the man was never old. 

III. 

Your Manning teemed with a benignant Grace, 
He may have been quite partial to the race, 
That built the church beside your palace-door. 
For men to worship in that holy place. 

IV. 

Though his great heart was English to the core, 
The fruitage of that heart on all he'd pour, 
And when the poor of London reach'd his gate, 
He open'd wide for them his open door. 

' — 2 — ■ 



V. 

When I think of some men that England bred, 
My heart softens wherever I may tread. 
And though she dug for me some nameless graves, 
I'd hate to hurt a hair upon her head. 

VI. 

Tenderness of heart is for man the key; 
Without it man can have no sympathy; 
Tenderness of heart makes the stupid wise, 
And gives to genius its eternity. 

VII. 

For heart or genius England does not care; 
She has on her face the commercial stare; 
Her monuments are for the men alone, 
That leave tears and many a vacant chair. 

VIII. 

How can we civilize? Well, let us see; 
The heart must beat for all humanity; 
The Sermon on the Mount is a safe guide. 
To fill the heart with love and charity. 

— 3 — 



IX. 

Without Sweet Chanty to soften life, 
What can we have, except the scalping knife? 
The race of men will always coarser grow. 
Unless they put aside both gall and strife. 

X. 

England civilizes, with a knife to pare; 
She first deprives the savage of his hair. 
And then she takes from him his glossy pelt. 
To make an easy cushion for her chair. 

XL 

Cardinal! Where is England's peaceful tread? 
For a Thousand years her hands with blood are rec 
The waves that float within her many seas. 
Cannot wipe out the blood that she has shed. 

XII. 

Unite with her to-day? Unite with Hell! 
E!ach day we hear the tolling of the bell, 
And see the dead, outside the church-yards' walk. 
In the lands where the Bags of England swell ! 

— 4 — 



XIII. . 

Without irreverence I say to you, 
If we embark with England's gory crew, 
In a dark night she'll scuttle all our ships, 
And tomahawk us where our children grew. 

XIV. 

She hired the savage with his scalping knife, 
To tomahawk the husband, babe and wife; 
She burnt our capitol some years ago; 
We do not want her hand upon our life. 

XV. 

Why build a huge Gibraltar at our door? 

Why keep her quenchless eyes upon our floor? 

The whole of Europe can not hurt her here; 

Does she want our flesh to wet her hands with gore? 

XVI. 

And does she want to own our land again, 
To have her buzzards feast upon our slain? 
And does she wish to drench our soil with blood, 
To flaunt her rag where Washington is lain? 

— 5 — 



XVII. 

Her ships are always looking at our shore; 
Their leaden hail may yet upon us pour; 
If what she has said be true we may die, 
Unless we quickly drive her from our door. 

XVIII. 

She thinks, to keep secure from future fear. 
The Transvaal must come within her sphere; 
Her action makes it plain to any man, 
That Canada should not be at our rear. 

XIX. 

Why not take the cub before the beast is grown? 
Why not take the soil before the grass is mown? 
Why not take, what God made to unify, 
A continent without a king or throne? 

XX. 

She broke open our mail the other day; 
What of it? Are we not in her pay? 
"It could not then have been an accident," 
Whispers the farmer on his load of hay. 

— 6 — 



XXI. 

Men of this land look closely at your sky; 
And when you see a spider crawling by, 
Remember England in the darkness creeps, 
When she is anxious for another fly. 

XXII. 

What she can do was shown the other day; 
Her men, at Washington, have paved the way, 
To dig the big canal, at our expense, 
Without a gun to drive her ships away. 

XXIII. 

Distrust the men who speak for England here; 
At Valley Forge these men were at the rear; 
They placed the marble on the British Spy, 
To have the flag of England reappear. 

XXIV. 

At Boston they want marbles for the dead. 
That put our fathers in their gory bed; 
They want those monuments for England there, 
To mock the men on Bunker Hill that bled, 



XXV. 

Fve said that you should scrutinize your sky, 
And when you see your children passing by. 
Be quick to scan, beyond your own domain, 
The garrisons that on your borders lie. 

XXVI. 

If watchful, treason here will turn to clay; 
The boy that rides upon his load of hay. 
Destroys the serpent, moving at his feet. 
Before the beast has time the boy to slay. 

XXVII. 

Men of this land, I say to you again. 
That England's hand will yet be on you lain. 
Unless you have your eye upon your door, 
To keep it from the pelting of her rain. 

XXVIII. 

We have some men within official place. 
That dropt some time ago their native face; 
They left it where the foreign lilies grow, 
To sprout at the heels of an alein race, 



XXIX. 

They turn their backs upon their native flag, 
To lowly bend beneath an alein rag; 
Within this land, to them so full of haze, 
The eagle still is watching on the crag. 

XXX. 

Their hearts and sympathies are far away. 
From the brave Burghers, butchered in their clay; 
They spurn the record that their Fathers made. 
To sip with England human gore to-day. 

XXXI. 

The lands we bought of Russia with our gold 
They've parcelled out for England now to hold: 
With bated breath upon their naked knees, 
They furl the flag where it had flown of old. 

XXXII. 

Mediocrities will be thrust aside; 
Our men that on Great Britain's stallions ride, 
In English breeches and a British cap, 
Will soon be told the world for them is wide. 



XXXIII. 

You speak of ''Kinship" that between ns lies; 
Europe, not England, gave to us our prize; 
The strain of English blood that once was here. 
Is only now of Lilliputian size. 

XXXIV. 

You want our blood to save you foreign race, 
To keep it snug within its hatching place; 
While I w^as walking in the wood to-day, 
I saw a serpent near a woman's face. 

XXXV. 

Before the serpent, behind the woman's face. 
Could slip his slime along her hair and lace. 
An eagle, watching from the mountain's brow, 
Had left the monster's Ijlood within the place. 

XXXVI. 

England, on you each day we have our eye; 
Our hearts are with the men that bravely die; 
Are with the men that perish in their blood. 
To keep alive the verdure of their sky. 

— lo — 



XXXVII. 

Kruger, as I scan the men of your race, 
I find faith, courage, equity and grace; 
Since the brave men that died at Marathon, 
No other men have ever fillVl their place. 

XXXVIII. 

Cardinal, where is England's peaceful hand? 
Can it be found by earth or ocean spand? 
With horrid thrusts, her sanguinary men 
Have murdered, wounded men in ev'ry land. 

XXXIX. 

Yesterday, with a swath of fiery rain, 

She moved the Dervishes upon the plain; 

''She took no prisoners !" She washed her lips with 
blood. 

While you sipt your tea at your window pane ! 

XL. 

While their blood from these murder'd men ran red, 

The English Bishops on their manna fed; 

At inhumanity a Turk will weep, 

While England strips herself and goes to bed. 

— II — ' 



XLL 

The woiincrd men, she slew upon the plain, 
Before the face of God we know w^ere slain; 
The tears of God fell on the murder'd men; 
His hand on England now is heavy lain. 

XLII. 

While the heated blood from her hands rand red. 
She smashed the tomb to mutilate the dead; 
Perhaps, at Court, upon some pleasant day. 
Her Judges there will show the Mahid's head. 

XLHI. 

Look at India; what is she to-day? 
England for starving men will only pray; 
Curzon says that she has no money now; 
The starving men will quickly pass away. 

XLIV. 

Eook at the Transvaal, look at the sky; 
The wind of death to England passes by; 
The silent shades are crowding at her doors. 
Fresh from the grasses where their corpses lie. 



XLV. 

The "Pigsticking" is now in vogue, they say; 
Within the Transvaal the other day, 
The Enghsh Lancers prodded dying men, 
To test the stuff within their Enghsh clay. 

XLVI. 

Within Old Drogheda, in Cromwell's time, 

They stuck suckling babes, women in their prime: 

They split the skulls of hoary-headed men; 

Will you to-day condone this English crime? 

XLVII. 

Can you now stand erect, where men have trod, 
And sayr ''England to-day is one with God?" 
If so the flesh will shiver in your hand. 
Before the grass shall tremble on your sod. 

^ XLVIII. 

The Transvaal you- yet may crucify; 
Brute force you may, of course, still multiply; 
The blood you shed in this unholy war 
Will bring tears to many a woman's eye. 

— 13 — 



XLIX. 

The palaces have now a vacant place; 
They will look in vain for the vanished face; 
The moated castle, near the ancient grange, 
Has no one left to carry on its race. 



Near The Burgher's door, at the close of day, 
The mother notes the children at their play; 
The news comes later, when the night is dark; 
"The father now is dead within his clay." 

LI. 

Within the sheilings that are near Dundee, 
In cabins, that are near the Irish sea. 
The women, old and young, are weeping there, 
For the men that they never more shall see. 

LII. 

The English maid, rich in her golden hair, 
Waits, wet with tears, for his steps, on the stair; 
The mother's tears, beside the open door, 
Are thickly falling in his vacant chair. 

— 14 — 



LIII. 

And must the hearts of women petrify. 
To ejirich men that in a day will die? 
The hard men pass, with pockets full of gold, 
The widows and the orphans coldly by. 

TIV. 

For privates, in the ranks, they do not care; 
For them they have not many pence to spare; 
The poor-house is the place for pauper-men. 
And for the maiden that has golden hair. 

TV. 

They leave to men a legacy of pain; 
Their weight to-day upon the earth is lain; 
To add some coffers to their massive store. 
They brought about another war again. 

LVI. 

Oh, God ! Since in the earth we all must lie, 
Why should the strong the weaker crucify? 
The men, that proudly in their stirrups ride. 
Can only have a piece of earth and sky. 
• —15 — 



LVII. 

Tenderness of heart, with charity for all, 
Marks the men of equity since the fall; 
The Master did not go to palaces, 
To pick the men yon have upon your wall. 

LVIII. 

He never left the regions of His land; 
He did the work that He found near at hand; 
He brought the healing to the poor man's door, 
Till the man that was dead, in life, men scanned. 

LIX. 

You went to France to pray for the English race; 
You do not like the Wolsleys on its face; 
Nonsense, man ! You might as well stay at home; 
You can not push the English from that place. 

LX. 

Cultur'd men, accustomVl to read and probe. 
Will, now and then, put on the elder robe; 
But the phlegmatic mass of English flesh. 
Will never catch the light that belts the globe. 

— i6 — 



LXL 

Ministers of God, you should realize, 
That there's a God for all within the skies, 
And that he's merciful to any man, 
No matter at what shrine his altar lies. 

LXII. 

Wherever on the earth the sun may shine. 
The face of God, for man, will there incline; 
The mother, from whose lips I learned to pray. 
Taught me a reverence for the Divine. 

. LXIII. 

And since then I have come to realize 
That there's a God for all within the ski^, 
And that the man, that does the best he can. 
Will never perish where his ashes lies. 

LVIV. 

There is an island that is near your shore; 
People starve there; rains in their cabins pour; 
How could you go to France to say your prayers. 
While starving men were dying at your door? 

— 17 — 



LXV. 

Newman and Manning never lost their place; 
They were not callous to the banished race, 
That built the church within your London Town, 
That purples you today with all her grace. 

LXVI. 

From you I go, a word or two to say. 
To your England, now crippl'd in her clay; 
The rustic man, that walks along the road, 
A/[ay measure out the measure of her day. 

LXVII. 

England ! Turn your face, not your back, to God; 
Though I shall never tread where I have trod, 
Fd have you reign, if you will justice do, 
And keep the measure of your righteous sod. 

LXVIIL 

I do not hate, though the grass may be lean 

Upon the graves that I have never seen : 

Fve heard it said, 'The graves are nameless there.'" 

Near the ruin'd hamlet where the grass was green ! 

— i8 — 



LXIX. 

Within this distant land I often see 
The mother's smiles that lulled my infancy; 
I feel her fall tears, with moistened hair, 
In the dark nights, while sleeping silently. 

LXX. 

A mother, from her tomb, still haunts the clay, 
To which, through God, she gave the light of day 
She comes to take from her poor boy the pain, 
The hands of cruel men upon him lay. 

LXXI. 

'Tis said her features gave to mine their flare, 
Once, wdiile I was brooding within this chair, 
I know I saw the features of her face, 
And the pale amber that was on her hair. 

LXXII. 

My mother's grave has never had a stone; 
The place where she lies is to all unknown; 
The tears of God that richly penetrate, 
May wet the features that for me have shown. 

— 19 — 



LXXIII. 

A father's face? Why speak of him? Alas ! 
Upon his unknown grave the birds may pass; 
Mary, the child that had the golden hair, 
Is sleeping somewhere underneath the grass. 

LXXIV. 

I do not hate, but I still feel the pain, 
I feel your hand upon me heavy lain; 
You orphaned me, while I was yet a child, 
And left my blood unknown upon the plain. 

LXXV. 

Within a year, or so, two millions died; 
The nations of the earth stood, horrified; 
WHiile starving men were dying in the roads. 
You sat within your chair quite edified. 

LXXVI. 

You look'd upon these men as beastial swine; 
To foreign parts you daily sent the kine, 
The grass was green ; the granaries were full ; 
The land was rich, in honey, milk, and wing. 

— 30 — 



LXXVII. 

"The population is too large," you said; 
"The church-yards there are ample for the dead," 
'Twas thus you spoke, while seated at your wine, 
With your hand resting on your mastiff's head. 

LXXVIIL 

You observVl the whole with a stony glare; 

You w^ere busy; you had not time to spare; 

While suckling babes sucked their dead mother's 
breasts. 

You had the barbers nicely part your hair. 

LXXIX. 

I pity you! You have philosophy; 

You have a land of Christianity; 

You've had saints, men of genius by the score, 

But where or when is your humanity? 

LXXX. 

• 

Since you are strong, why can you not be wise? 
Your heart is stone; you look through callous eyes; 
You crush'd the little island at your door. 
That helped to make for you your English skie^, 

— 3J — 



LXXXI. 

You let but death, disease, starvation fall 

Upon a race of men that have no gall. 

Who shed their blood to make your empire great, 

Where once the drums of England used to call. 

LXXXIL 

Without that wall of men where would you be? 
Wellington said : "You could not have the sea." 
The men that won your land in every zone, 
In their own land, through you, have misery. 

LXXXIII. 

Without that blood you'd have but feeble sway; 
English officers are brave, but dull they say; 
Within your lovely London drawing rooms, 
These scarlet men are monarchs of the day. 

LXXXIV. 

Without that blood to-day where would you be? 
Your star would sink in silence in the sea; 
The crown that is upon your woman's head, 
Would crumble like a dead leaf on a tree. 

— 23 — 



LXXXV. 

I cannot praise the work that they have done. 
Since England, from their island, took the sun 
The martyr's blood that drips a thousand years 
The battle in the end has always won. 

LXXXVI. 

Who are the men that graced your senate hall ? 
Who are the men that made Napoleon fall? 
To curb Hastings, from multiplying skulls, 
Who were the men that blew your bugle call? 

LXXXVIL 

Do justice to the island at your door, 
The voices of your dead men now implore; 
The stars that shine upon your ships to-night 
Will some night shine upon a shipless shore. 

LXXXVIII. 

England, that is the mistress of the sea. 
Must righteous grow or she will shipless be; 
A nation, that is built on dead men's bones. 
Is always crippled in mortality. 



LXXXIX. 

Queen of England, a word, if rightly said, 
By yon, might lift that island from its bed; 
The sun that shines on such a unity 
Might help to keep your empire from the dead. 

XC. 

Although a woman that word you'll never speak; 
Salisbury, in the grave, would turn his cheek; 
He had no use for men he called "Hottentots," 
Until the blood in English dales grew weak. 

XCI. 

No word of mine is harsh to woman's name; 

You are a woman, and from God you came; 

And though your reign dug nameless graves for me, 

Upon your coffin I shall cast no blame. 

XCH. 

Perhaps, at best, you could but little do; 

Your blood to Ireland never has been true; 

Oh, sluggish blood ! that grop'd the darkened way, 

Forgetful of the sky where it is blue. 

— 24 — 



XCIII. 

That island in the sea would rather die, ■ 
Than aid your belted men to crucify 
The men that wet with blood their grassy slopes. 
To keep in touch for them their nook of sky. 

XCIV. 

She has no tears, for her sons, whose hands are red, 
With freedom's blood for lordly tyrants shed; 
She has but shame, for her pale ghastly men. 
That in a foreign land have found their bed. 

xcv. 

Kipling, through his bold ballad lines, has spun 
A place for Tommy Atkins at the sun; 
Poor Tommy's feet that blister in the sand, 
Still show how quickly Tommy's race is run, 

XCVI. 

December snow upon the hills is bleek; 
'The Absent-minded beggar" is no freak; 
No man should advertise what all men know, 
That Tommy in the flesh is always weak, 

— 25 — 



XCVII. 

Tommy is stolid, but the man is brave; 
I would not hurt a ilower on Tommy's grave; 
His mother's tears that fall for him to-night 
Will never fall where his dead grasses wave. 

XCVIII. 

Weeping mothers of England let me say, 

It is the men that have the sordid clay, 

That dig the graves for those that have your bones. 

While they remain at home to make their hay. 

XCIX. 

Kipling, you have, at last, enriched our tongue; 
'Recessional" from dust has never sprung; 
Man of genius ! let pelf and barracks go, 
To sing the songs that Shelley might have sung. 



Survival of the fittest will not do; 
For men of genius this is not the crew; 
The consecration that is on their brows. 
Should keep for the weaker men the skies blue, 
— 26 — 



CI. 

The man that quickens, through creative power, 
His hghtnings on the weak should never shower, 
The sweets that chng to consecrated lips, 
If soiled, will turn to ashes in an hour. 

CII. 

The plaid'd men have fought your battles too; 
They are among the bravest of your crew; 
The Highlanders are scatter'd on the hills; 
The hunting men are where their pastures grew. 

cm. 

If ruled by wisdom, what would England be? 
A trinity of islands in the sea; 
Her empire, then, secure from any shock. 
Could breast the waters of eternity. 

CIV. 

An empire, avaricious for the earth, 
Could not have had a pure, celestial birth; 
The hand of God, dispensing equity. 
Will pile the ashes high upon her hearth. 

— 27 — 



v^ 



V. 



England ! Retrace your steps, or you will die ! 
The fate of Rome should be before your eye; 
The pomp that on you shown, but yesterday, 
To-morrow may within your ashes lie. 

CVT. 

Wars, for gold, breed corruption, quick decay; 
The Roman nobles in their tunics lay. 
Beside their lemans, litter'd down with gold. 
Until, at last, their empire passed away. 

CVIL 

Can it be that your cheeks have lost their bloom? 
That rank decay is digging now your tomb? 
Kneel in the cloisters 'round your holy aisles. 
To pray in silence in that holy gloom. 

CVIII. 

A portion of your race is in decay; 
Your higher men are men of lower clay; 
The primrose paths the Romans trod before, 
Will quickly sap the lives of men away. 

— 28 — 



CIX. 

A nation that has lost its rural men 

Will quickly fall into the depths of sin; 

The canker, that corrodes mortality, 

Is working with the hands of death within. 

ex. 

The Jubilee is gone, but you are here; 
Where will you be within another year? 
The hand of God, projecting from the sky. 
May toss to you your sepulchre and bier 

CXI. 

To-day you may defy the wind and rain; 
To-morrow an invention — your fleets are slain; 
The day may come, when you with tears will see 
That your potential hand has lost the main. 

CXII. 

Venice was once the mistress of the seas, 
From Labrador unto the Hebridies, 
Although they nightly slept on cushioned gold, 
Her Doges lost their power and palaces. 

— 29 — 



• CXIII. 

And when you come to speak of Grecian lore, 
Remember, Greece is lifeless to the core; 
The men to-day, that idle on her plains, 
Have never gazed upon a Grecian door. 

CXIV. 

Above the sands that over Egypt rise. 
The sun to-day is dead within the skies; 
The Sphinx, that towers, above that arid waste, 
Is all we have to show where Egypt lies. 

cxv. 

Do not forget the cities of the plane; 
The fire of God, at last, on them was lain; 
Babylon, Sedan, Tyre lie in the sand, 
Without a blade of grass or drop of rain. 

CXVI. 

Two cities, that in Italy we size. 
Lie buried where their sunken ashes lies; 
The moral is : That Cities steep'd in sin, 
Will one day in an hour or two capsize. 

— 30 — 



CXVII. 

upon Achille's heels no wind is blown: 
The place where Priam lived is now unknown; 
The dnst of Paris sleeps where Helen wept, 
Until her heart had turned into a stone. 

CXVIII. 

Thebes, with her hundred gates, is long since dead; 
The weeds and nettles, now above her head, 
Perhaps, are conscious of the buried dust, 
That is for her an everlasting bed. 

CXIX. 

Old Presopolis now no vigil keeps; 
Palmyra underneath a sand-hill sleeps; 
What's left to mark the men of either race 
Except the lizard that in silence weeps? 

cxx. 

Where can we find the spires of Neneveh? 
Where can we find the kings of yesterday? 
The abbey, that enshrines your sacred dust, 
In years to come, will be forgotten cla^, 

— 31 — 



CXXI. 

And your huge London with its mighty roar 
Will yet be silent on a stagnant shore; 
The serpent and the lizard soon may crawl, 
Where kings and damsels danced upon the floor. 

CXXIL. 

Upon your battle plains we daily see 
The blood, fresh from the Man of Galilee; 
The nation, that imbrues its hands in gore, 
Still crucifies the Man of Calvary. 

CXXIIL 

What means this crucifixion here to-day? 
The boy that's passing in the street may say : 
''McCaulay's savage, from your broken bridge. 
May sketch the ruins where an empire lay." 

CXXIV. 

You have blustered; been arrogant and vain; 
In weaker lands you have inflicted pain; 
You like to crush the roses growing there, 
To irritate, so you may slash again, 

— 32 — 



cxxv. 

Your one-eyed-man, with his cold blatant tongue. 
From a safe distance has his venom tiung; 
The man from Birmingham has bled your blood, 
And left you old, while you should still be young. 

CXXVI. 

For many years you have been drunk with wine; 
Drunk with dominion over palm and pine, 
You beastialized for gold, and lost your God ! 
The face of Chamberlain is not divine. 

CXXVII. 

X^ot content with almost universal power, 
You still want the rest of the earth for a dow'r; 
The fearful hand, that in the darkness smites. 
Will sometimes silence nations in an hour. 

CXXVIIL 

I do not hate, and I would have you reign 
If vou win keep your banner free from stain; 
The little linnets lilting in your dales 
Point out to you the way from heavy pain. 

— 33 — 



cxxx. 

Cast yonr eye where your Burke and Chatham trod 

Let conquest go, and consecrate your sod. 

The epaulett'd men that plow your seas, 

Have steerless hulks, without the hand of God. 

CXXIX. 

The panoply and pomp, that you have wore, 
Will perish like the dew that's at your door; 
The rain that falls to-night upon your streets, 
Will one day fall upon your unpeopled shore. 

CXXXI. 

The coronets and crowns will pass away; 
They are Init baubles that are made of clay; 
A single tear shed at the poor man's door, 
Survives the monarchs famous in their day. 

CXXXII. 

The man that walks erect on any sod, 

The man that bleeds where saintly men have trod; 

The man of justice, faith, and equity 

Upon the earth will have the face of God. 

— 34 — 



CXXXIII. 

Survival of the fittest is the way. 
That men deplete the lives of men today; 
The poor man's hand, that is upon the cross, 
To them is nothing but the coarsest clay. 

CXXXIV. 

Have we no laurelled man within this land, 
Whose wreath is by the passing breezes fann'd? 
The laurelled man, unseen, sits in the shade, 
Watching the man that's digging in the sand. 

cxxxv. 

The callous man that's digging in that place 
Was never known to have an ounce of grace; 
The tightened bags will dangle from his belt, 
Until the hand of Death shall squeeze his face. 

CXXXVI. 

A preacher met him when he was alone; 
His hand would freeze a lizard on a stone; 
He told the preacher that he goes to church, 
"To pick the coin that in the Book is sown." 

— 35 — 



CXXXVII. 

He was, for a while, in the senate-hall ; 

He had a seat, of course, and that was all; 

He g-rubb'd for gold where Clay and Webster trod. 

Although their pictures hung upon the wall. 

CXXXVHI. 

He is hugh and keen, but why multiply 
The beaks that in the vulture, hidden lie; 
The spider, that is crawling on the wall, 
Is always looking for a stranded fly. 

CXXXIX. 

A tariff on our island, far away, 
To drive, from us, the men that come to stay; 
Why not put a tax on our soldiers dead. 
To give the trusts another inch of sway. 

CXL. 

The svndicates and trusts will now prepare. 
To pillage our poor island over there; 
The senators will bag for them the game. 
To place the diamonds in their daughters' hair. 
— 36 — 



CXLl. 

Did we shed our blood for the Cuban land, 
To place on it a worse than Spanish brand? 
And did the Porto Ricans to us come, 
To have the shackles placed upon their hand? 

CXLIL 

A nation, with a broken word, will die; 
None can evade the scanning of God's eye; 
Unless a nation's word be the word of God, 
The grasses on her corpse will quickly lie. 

CXLIIL 

Shall we destroy the charter of our fame, 

To give the men of greed another flame? 

A laceration, put upon it now, 

Would slice the men that from their coffins came. 

CXLIV. 

The dead, with bended heads, approach your door; 
Their steps may soon be heard upon your floor; 
They come to say that you shall not destroy 
The land, for which, in life, they gave their gore. 

— 37 — 



CXLV. 

The hush, the silence, that are in your room. 
Portend the advent of the men of gloom; 
The faces of the men that should be seen 
May come to you in silence from the tomb. 

CXLVl. 

Can you not see them, passing by your wall? 
In silent solemn tones on you they call; 
Their perspiration should be on your brows; 
The dead, with bitter tears, have left your hall ! 

CXLVII. 

They say the faces of the dead remain 
The same, when they come back to us again; 
The features that are for the other shore 
Can not endure the fierceness of our rain. 

CXLVIII. 

Since all of us have immortality, 

Why should not the dead with us sometimes be, 

To walk perhaps along the valley-road. 

To pick the apples that are on the tree? 

-38- 



CXLIX. 

Why not the men that for their nation shone, 
The men that made their nation stand alone. 
Come back to it from sepulchre and bier. 
To save their nation from the men of stone? 

CL. 

Did 3^111 not see the dead pass through your hall? 
Did you not hear their vanish'd voices call? 
The solid men, that never wash their clay, 
Pass by the dead to see a game of ball. 

CLI. 

Among that silent band, that ghostly crew, 
Of pale, mournful, spectral men, there were two: 
The one had a broad mild benignant face; 
His tears quickly fell when he looked at you ! 

CLII. 

After the fall of tears he turn VI aside: 
His lips grew ashen ; had he been crucified? 
A savage pass'd, with blood upon his knife! 
He look'd, and saw you were not horrified ! 

— 39 — 



CLIII. 

The other was the saddest man of all ; 
His cheeks were wet; in stature he was tall; 
He showed the blood, still oozing from his side, 
And cast upon your floor the pistol-ball ! 

CLIV. 

In him conscience, intellect, heart were plain; 
The fame of famous men you should retain; 
With something of rebuke upon his face. 
He scann'd the men around the room again. 

CLV. 

The dead may penetrate collossal walls 
His glances quickly went beyond your halls; 
He penetrates the room he glorified, 
To note the atmosphere that in it falls. 

CLVL 

The rue upon his face more painful shone; 
He looked around for the chair he had known; 
But when he saw the imperial face, 
Although the man was dead, he heaved a groan ! 

— 40 — 



CLVII. 

O men of alien hearts have you no shame? 

P^or God and native land have you no flame? 

Why should you glorify an alien rag, 

That's wet with blood that from your fathers came? 

CLVIII. 

The men of other lands have crossed the sea. 
To help us float the flag of liberty; 
But you no kindly words have offered up. 
For the brave burghers, fighting to be free. 

CLIX. 

Your richer men say, while they nightly dine, 
'The mother country is, indeed divine; 
She helped us bravely in the Cuban war. 
That brought to us the ginger and the wine." 

CLX. 

''We know our fathers blunder'd long ago; 
The mother's flag above us still should glow; 
We trust the two, in one, will soon unite," 
"To bag the swag where foreign waters flow." 
— 41 — 



CLXI. 

*'She boards our ships, but let her go ahead; 
Apologies for nations may be read; 
The secret partnership is now secure," 
"Although our father's blood by her was shed.' 

CLXIL 

Be careful what 3^ou say; the dead are near; 
Their apparitions may be at your rear; 
If you spurn the blood, that your fathers shed, 
The skulls of coffin'd men may face you here. 

CLXIII. 

For war we have some gospel-men that prate. 
Engendering, in men, the spleen of hate; 
O g-ospel-men stick to your Holy Book; 
The hour for all of us is growing late. 

CLXIV. 

The balm that comes from native loyalty; 
For weaknesses the oil of charity; 
Along with these the people still should have 
Pure justice, temper'd with (xod's ef[uity. 

— 42 — 



CLXV. 

Some politicians, in official life. 
With hidden schemes of greed are always rife; 
These callous men would lacerate a child. 
To whet the edge of their official knife. 

CLXVL 

When belted for the game they play the ball; 
They shake the trees to have the apples fall; 
And when their patriotic work is done. 
They find the gold that's hidden in the wall. 

CLXVIL 

The mark of cunningness is on their face; 
For intellect or heart they have no space; 
Their work, of course, is for humanity. 
To keep the poor man in his proper place. 

CLXVin. 

They often pose, as of the holy crew; 
The saints of God on earth we know are few; 
These fresh apostles, that are gently made, 
Have come to make the sky a place of blue. 

— 43— . 



CLXIX. 

This is the nature of the trusts to-day : 
They hourly rob the farmer of his hay; 
They tax the iid, within the pauper's grave, 
To put a ring upon an inch of clay. 

CLXX. 

The man of wealth, with marked ability, 
A member of the trusts can only be; 
The man that dares to walk his road alone 
Is ponia.rd'd with blades of piracy. 

CLXXI. 

Until the people shall the trusts capsize, 
From honesty to wealth no man can rise; 
This shapeless thing, with its voricious maw. 
Is like a beast that on an infant lies. 

CLXXII. 

Our gallant chief a valiant stand had made; 

But when the mammoth men came with their blade. 

With lips distending for our infant's flesh. 

He quickly roll'd before their mammoth shade, 

— 44 — 



CLXXIII. 

He has deeply blundered; he is not wise; 
The man that firmly walks should not capsize; 
Our plastic man has gone the primrose way, 
To find the path where his "Plain Duty" lies. 

CLXXIV. 

The man that has the politician's glow, 
Within his heart may have a fall of snow; 
The man that wabbles in mortality 
Should watch the In-eezes that upon him blow. 

CLXXV. 

Look anxiously upon our troubled sky; 
The apparitions on us have their eye; 
The men, that trample where their fathers bled, 
Will soon be where the ancient Romans lie. 

CLXXVL 

A nation that will daily use its power, 
Not for the people, but to place a dower 
On a pampered set, grinning in their greed, 
Will some day perish in a single hour, 

— 45 — 



CLXXVIL 

The big thick-lipt crew that corrupts with gold 
Drains dry the nation's milk within its fold; 
Politicians ! what of the sucking crew. 
To whom the peoples' milk you've cheaply sold? 

CLXXVIIL 

The statesman's manger should be daily swept; 
Be cautious of the men that there have crept; 
Through a wise vigilance, that never tires, 
A nation's heritage alone is kept. 

CLXXIX. 

The faithful men, within the senate-hall. 
When danger comes, will sound the bugle call; 
The rattling skeletons, that mumble there, 
Are squinting for the things behind the wall. 

CLXXX. 

A mammoth man stalks daily up the stair; 
He leaves no vacancy within his chair; 
The senator, that has no use for books, 
With heavy smoke is flooding all the air. 

-46- 



CLXXXL 

Have we a man that dredged for gold before 

He found a seat upon the senate-floor. 

To pose for elecutionary fame, 

To please the corpse that's smiling at his door? 

CLXxxn. 

You should curb the goslings that you have there 
They should, at least, wash their teeth to prepare, 
Before they look upon the galleries. 
To scan the ringlets of a woman's hair. 

CLXXXHI. 

Have we a boss that wants to have his way? 
"Me too;" I heard a boy in the street say; 
The statesman's toga is about him thrown, 
Although the man is but a lump of clay. 

CLXXXIV. 

Hoar, when dead, men are soon forgotten here; 
But, upon your plain sepulchre and bier. 
Your country's tears, like holy rain, will fall. 
Because in time of need you were her seer. 

— 47 — 



CLXXXV. 

Within the flesh, with us, you still remain, 
To beckon to the early stars again; 
The faces of the men, that went before, 
Should not be pelted here by foreign rain. 

CLXXXVI. 

In you we recognize what wise men say, 
The men that rule with equitable sway; 
The corpses of the men, that went before. 
Are better than the men we have to-day. 

CLXXXVII. 

Death must come, but a statesman's death should be. 
To his own land an immortality; 
His consecration will upon it fall, 
If he be true to God and his nativity. 

CLXXXVITI. 

The righteous man can never pass away. 
The man that richly shone within his day,. 
The man that loudly blew the bugle blast. 
Though gone from us, is with us still to stay. - 

-48- 



CLXXXIX. 

There is another step that you should go, 
If you would have your fame secure below; 
The laurel for the righteous man, that falls,. 
Can never blossom wheue his grasses grow. 

cxc. 

A famous man that knows the righteous way, 
While in the valley here may go astray; 
What could it be that tempted him to fall 
Before the sun had left the sky that day. 

CXCI. 

In life we dig the grave that is to be 
The sepulchre of our mortality; 
The famous man, that in the battle flags. 
Will be forgotten in eternity. 

CXCII. 

The man that falters, where he nobly led. 
Will have to be with the forgotten dead; 
The massive pile, that decorates his grave. 
Can generate no laurel for his head. 

— 49 — 



CXCIIL 

Gigantic ferrets make the law a trade; 
These Liniputians by the trusts are paid; 
Spider-like, in silence, in little rooms. 
They v/eave the webs that are for pirates made. 

CXCTV. 

O, for an hour of Webster, his hand to squeeze! 
To watch his massive features in the breeze; 
The lizards, emerging from their caves of sin, 
A Sal)bath day in sumnier time would freeze. 

cxcv. 

Where is the genius that there w^as of yore? 
Are Currans, Clays and Websters now no more? 
The little men keep hatching on their eggs, 
Till their brood of ducats spawn upon the floor. 

CXCVL 

Where can we find the Clays and Websters now? 
The leaf is sere and yellow on the bough; 
The men that boss the pilots on the deck 
Are banking at the helm and at the prow. 

— 50 — 



CXCVII. 

The statesmanshap to-day is greed of gold; 
Genius, without ducats, can have no hold ; 
The bookless statesmen, with their bank accounts, 
Laueh at the Websters that there w^ere of old. 



'fe^ 



CXCVIII. 

"VVe will work for CjOcI," from them daily drips; 
"We will civilize," from them hourly slips; 
And while they say their work is for the poor. 
They tap the blood of man to w^et their lips. 

CXClX. 

To-day the barons in the saddles ride; 
Their fame, wath Websters, they v/ill not divide; 
The Websters kneel before the sad^Hes now, 
To pick the gold that's falling at the. side. 

CC. 

The lawyer great or small, that is true to God; 
Will never need a penetential sod; 
The legal-man that does his duty here 
Will leave his steps where holy men have trod. 

— 51 — 



CCI. 

We have such men; they're with us here to-day; 
We note the Hghts upon their foreheads play. 
They stand, the stately beacons of our land, 
To pilot men along the 'righteous way. 

ecu. 

Unless we have the Websters to remain, 
This land may perish in a fall of rain; 
Heart, intellect, not brutish greed of gold, 
Alone, can save our land from heavy pain. 

CCIII. 

The man that has no reverence for God, 

In life or death, is but a piece of sod; 

The faith that always richly sanctifies 

Will leave its tracks where saintly men have trod. 

CCIV. 

There is an old man's door across the way, 
That in a year or two will have no day, j 

That's dearer to some men in Washington, 
Than Washington embalmed within his clay, 

— 52 — 



ccv. 

Since these men are known we will let them go; 
The sun, in spring, will quickly melt the snow; 
The early slabs, where marble grasses lie, 
Will garniture forgotten flesh below. 

CCVL 

The man that always creeps may sometimes fall; 
The man that's deaf may sometimes hear the call 
An ofhce is, of course, a pleasant place. 
To hang a coat where Webster's graced the wall. 

CCVII. 

The unseen man looked on, but nothing said; 
He saw that men, in life, may still be dead; 
That native men, entomb'd, in foreign stone. 
Unknown to them, in sepulchres are fed. 

CCVIII. 

Genius, richly absorbing, goes its way. 
With tenderness for those that hurt its day; 
The man that's true to his celestial birth, 
Mu3t bleed on earth until his dying day. 

— 53 — 



CCIX. 

With chanty, for those who cannot see, 
Behind the vale that hides the mystery, 
The man of genius blossoms, from himself, 
The roses that are for humanity. 

ccx. 

Cold isolation here must be his fate; 
He must not look for anything but hate; 
The man that brings the fruitage to our door 
Will find, for him, no apples on our plate. 

CCXL 

This is the penalty that he must pay. 
For the deeper truths that he finds each day; 
The man that wholly lives within the flesh 
Can never know the man that left his clay. 

CCXIL 

'The penalty he must pay?" There is no penalty: 
A man must bleed to bridge eternity; 
The man, that idles out his little day, 
Can never scan beyond mortality. 

— 54 — 



CCXIII. 

Until a man has felt his anguish keen, 
His soul has never with the angels been; 
The man, that fills his life with glacial clay, 
The heritage of God has never seen. 

CCXIV. 

Through suffering men rise and purify; 
The altar, that is in the furthest sky, 
Is seen by those that have the power to gaze. 
Beyond the corpses wl,iere the altars lie. 

CCXV. 

The pain that comes from thought has a delight, 
Fresher than a woman's hair, kissed, at night. 
With the moon, shining on it, through the trees. 
Before the stars have vanished from her sight. 

CCXVI. 

A woman's smile for Dante always shown; 
What if cold men pricked his flesh to the bone? 
He saw that smile; he felt her fall of hair 
In the dark nights when he was all alone. 

— 55 — 



CCXVII. 

Stolid men little know the balm that lies, 
Within the hearts of men that have the skies: 
The woman's love that in tlie man is seen, 
Within the man of genius never dies. 

CCXVIII. 

Perhaps that woman he has never seen; 
Perhaps that obstacles have come between; 
The man that has the soft mesmeric touch. 
Within the deserts has his spots of green. 

CCXIX. 

Her consecration makes the f^ame divine, 
To light the candles where his altars shine; 
The man that has to walk his lonely road, 
At nio-ht before the altar has his shrine. 



'fe' 



ccxx. 

The song he sings remains forever new; 
And although his audience be but few, 
Because they come from the elect of God, 
They find in him one of their scattered crew. 

-56- 



CCXXL 

l^nknown. misunderstood, he goes through Hfe, 
A stranger to the men that know but strife; 
The man that walks the consecrated heath 
Must bear the laceration of the knife. 

CCXXII. 

He does not look for gold; it is not there; 
He may find pleasure in a woman's hair; 
He may find rapture in a sweet child's face, 
And in the book he has within his chair. 

CCXXHL 

The heart of genius in the face is plain; 
Genius generates for man a woman's pain; 
Through woman's love, that richly consecrates. 
Though dead, the man of genius lives again. 

CCXXIV. 

Is the pale Florentine or Petrarch dead? 
They need no sculptured stone to mark their bed 
The holy fire that from the woman came 
Will keep the laurel green upon their head. 

— 57 — 



ccxxv. 

A woman's love, we know, can never die; 
JK woman's love that's born within the sky. 
Unlike the man's, is destitute of clay, 
Because she has the penetrating eye. 

CCXXVI. 

Man, for man, should exercise charity; 
The man, for woman, should have purity; 
The woman with the man shauld sweetly mate. 
To give the groom the bridegroom's chastity. 

CCXXVII. 

When pure, the two, in one, become divine; 
The flames, that from the woman's features shine, 
Impart to man her purity of soul, , 

Until she constitutes for him a shrine. 

CCXXVIII. 

Until the woman's love, that purifies. 
Falls upon the man, he can have no skies; 
He gropes a stolid dullard on the earth. 
Until the woman gives to him her eyes. 

-58- 



CCXXIX. 

The day is clear to those that purify, 
Their natures, near the men that have no sky; 
The men that cull the sweets where roses are 
Must feel the thorns that in the roses lie. 

ccxxx. 

And must the man of genius bend the knee, 
To men that only have mortality? 
The soul, itself, to-day is ostracized. 
From pious palaces where God should be. 

CCXXXI. 

"Bend to men the knee?" He would rather die. 
Than lose upon the earth his space of sky; 
The rev'rent man that walks his lonely road 
Is penetrating with the inner eye. 

CCXXXII. 

He sees what other men can never see. 
Unless, like him, they solve the mystery; 
The man, at night, that blossoms in the shade, 
May move the veil that hides eternity. 

— 59 — 



ccxxxiii. 

The mail that has for vanished souls an ear, 
To catch their steps before they disappear, 
Receives from death what Hfe can never give^ 
To mark for him his sepulchre and bier. 

CCXXXIV. 

The fame, of famous men, may soon decay; 
The fame of Homers never pass away; 
The fame, that comes to men while in the flesh, 
Will vanish with the passing of their clay. 

ccxxxv. 

The old money-bags combs his scattered hair; 
For books that have genius he does not care; 
To-day he struts, outside his bookless door; 
To-morrow he will leave a vacant chair. 

CCXXXVI. 

His grave will be upon the green hillside; 
The toads, around his stone, point out with pride, 
That buried flesh will soon forgotten be, 
Unless the man in life was glorified. 

— 60 — 



CCXXXVII. 

To him the man of genius is a fool, 
A weakHng that has never gone to school; 
The men, inspired by the creative power, 
Within the counting house can never rule. 

CCXXXVIII. 

They still remain the rulers of the mind; 

At night, while list'ning to the moaning wind, 

They enter deep into the Mystery, 

To leave to men their legacies behind. 

CCXXXIX. 

They are the men that win the grand renown; 
They are the men that wear the laurel crown; 
They are the men that never can decay. 
Until the globe, itself shall tumble down. 

CCXL. 

The man that has a heart for charity; 

The man of genius that bears poverty; 

The martyred man that's gashed upon the road, 

Upon their features have eternity. 

— 6i — 



CCXLI. 

These are the men the world will not let die; 
They leave, behind their steps, a purer sky; 
The wounded bird upon a forest tree, 
Should quickly bring the tears to any eye. 

CCXLII. 

The man of wealth that has God's charity 
Deepens his nature in humanity; 
The heart of any man will tender grdw, 
That pours the oil on human misery. 

CCXLIII. 

The miser never has a pleasant day; 

He never has a kindly word to say; 

The man that richly gives unseen, unsought, 

Will feel that God is moving in his clay. 

CCXLIV. 

The man, though bookless, may be still divine; 
Through charity he has with him his shrine; 
Oh men of wealth look at your daughters there. 
Before the lamp-lights gloat above your wine ! 
— 62 — 



CCXLV. 

The tinkling glass (the orange-rose men spare, 
To place at night, tipon a woman's hair), 
May quickly turn the roses into grass. 
To wave upon those lovely lemans there. 

CCXLVI. 

The palaces of kings, where sea-walls foam, 
Can never be for kings a happy honie; 
The man that plucks the roses at his door 
Will never from his habitation roam. 

CCXLVIL 

Of men of wealth I never speak with hate; 

They need not be a menace tO' the state; 

I speak of sordid men and parventies. 

And not of men whose wealth has made men great. 

CCXLVIIL 

The unnoted man goes his w^ay alone. 
Far from the images of walking stone; 
Out of touch, with a world of iron rule, 
He finds that moss upon the heart is grown, 

-63- 



CCXLIX. 

To be alone is not to hate mankind; 
The man that keeps alone is never blind; 
The man that suffers and his silence keeps, 
The secrets of the soul will always find. 

CCL. 

He's not captious, since charity should grace; 
There is inherent weakness in the race; 
The nature that's born within the man, 
Within the man will always have a place. 

CCLI. 

For the weaker men what can here avail? 
Kindness — a little wisdom may prevail; 
God pours the oil, stamped with his equity. 
Upon the men whose fathers made them frail. 

CCLII. 

And this should always be the moral rule : 
A moral pedant is a moral fool; 
O moralists ! sit at the sinner's door 
Before you talk to him of any school, 



CCLIIL 

The solitary man that goes his way 
Is conscious of the weaknesses of clay; 
Is conscious that the Father has a tear, 
To help the man that has his hour to stay. 

CCLIV. 

To the distant hills he will sometimes go, 
To pick the roses where no lillies grow; 
The man, that has the penetrating eye. 
May blossom roses in the banks of snow. 

CCLV. 

His neighbors bag their gold; though full of sway^ 
The most of them are burdened in their clay; 
There is a bachelor that sheds his tears, 
Because he can not take his gold away. 

CCLVI. 

He has a shrivel'd face, a shrunken eye; 
The women laugh as he goes limping by; 
Yesterday he thought he had stronger grown; 
To-day we saw the grass where he shall lie, 

-65-. 



CCLVII. 

The ])oorer man that has his Ijooks, at hand, 
Discerns the stars upon the distant sand; 
Beside liis window, on a snowy day, 
The roses l^lossom for him in tlie land. 

CCLVIIL 

The uimoted man has his books and creed; 
He has the books that great men never read; 
Through them he daily furctifies his life; 
The great men through another source may feed. 

CCLIX. 

Of culture, genius, heart, what can he say? 
He asks, "\\'ho are the men that rule to-day?" 
The school 1)oy, that is laughing in his sleeve. 
Still laughing, points him to the men of clay. 

CCLX. 

The heavy men are now^ within the hall; 
Around their palaces they btu'ld a wall; 
The fathers that were in the early day 
Would not permit a man on earth to crawl. 
— 66 — 



CCLXL 

Oh God of Power ! What have we here to-day 

Is survival of the fittest the way? 

Was the Son crucified upon the cross, 

To pfive a thing the power to butcher clay? 

CCLXIL 

The flesh that is upon the man should shine; 
The soul within the flesh must have its shrine 
The man that mutilates the flesh of God 
Can never see the face of the Divine. 

CCLXIII. 

At birth His mother's flesh became His clay; 
The flesh can never wholly pass away; 
The man that massacres the flesh of man 
Still crucifies the flesh of God to-day. 

CCLXIV. 

Man's cruelity to man may gash the soul; 
This laceration may destroy the whole; 
Though flesh be but a tenement of clay. 
It harbors that which has a higher goal. 

-67- 



CCLXV. 

Of culture, genius, heart, what can he say? 
The men within the fields are mowing hay; 
The scholar, with his books, sits at his door; 
The coach and four is passing by the way. 

CCLXVI. 

Look at the men that on their pinions soar; 
Look at the men that bar the golden door; 
The men that God has made must step aside. 
To make a passage for the coach and four ! 

CCLXVII. 

The passage made — the pall and hearse pass by, 
Perhaps without a tear from woman's eye; 
The mausoleum, with its sculptur'd stone, 
Will perish when the dust is in the sky. 

CCLXVIIL 

Monumental stones for men? What are they? 
The castle that is on the hill to-day. 
In years to come, will have but little trace. 
To mark the men that perish'd in its clay. 

— 68 — 



CCLXIX. 

The man that hustles till his day is done, 

Without books or thought — well what has he spun? 

The coffers, that are shining on his board. 

And hour of joy for him have never won. 

CCLXX. 

The men that for gold sacrifice their God, 
In death, are soon forgotten in the sod; 
The castle is of brick and mortar made, 
In which the feet of vanish'd men have trod. 

CCLXXI. 

The cold commercial spirit of our time. 
Like a bloodhound scenting, is slipping slime; 
The nations that for gold will barter Christ, 
Will perish when they should be in their prime. 

CCLXXII. 

O. kings and emporers and nations' all, 
The hand of Death is always on your wall; 
The skeleton, that lurks behind your doors. 
Will have for you your sepulchre and pall. 

—69— 



CCLXXIII. 

Lay clown the sword, or by it you will die, 
And rot within the earth where maggots lie; 
The nations, that for pillage wage their wars, 
Will soon be left without a trace of sky. 

CCLXXIV. 

Oh God ! what is this life? But yesterday 
My boy and I went down the alley-way; 
The pall and shroud are dangling at my door; 
My boy is cof^n'd now within his clay! 

CCLXXV. 

The first to go are those we love the best ; 
The babe is not safe on the mother's breast; 
A vanish'd hand is always at the door. 
To point us to the bourne where all is rest. 

CCLXXVI. 

Your vanish'd hand before me I shall see; 
Your vanish'd face will nightly with me be; 
And when the moon is rounding on the hill, 
I'll find you underneath the alley-tree. 

— 70 — 



CCLXXVII. 

The bourne, clear Tom, to which you'd have me pass, 

Is, for the body, underneath the grass; 

The other bourne to which you'd have me go, 

Is where you serve the angels at the mass. 

CCLXXVIII. 

To-day this new-made sepulchre and rue 
Have left upon my sky no speck of blue; 
Sometime, of this, I hope to nobly speak, 
Inspired by faith, and reverence for you. 

CCLXXIX. 

This is not the hour, nor have I the grace, 
To kneel at the shrine of that boyish face; 
Perhaps in days to come, with change of mood. 
This boy of mine will find his proper place. 

CCLXXX. 

Unknown to all, dear Tom. we'll have our say; 
As we go nightly down the alley-way. 
Your tears will fall upon my face and hair, 
And your sweet hands upon me gently lay. 

-71- 



CCLXXXL 

Why should not my dead boy come back to be. 
At night, with me beneath the alley-tree? 
This boy of mine, that went but yesterday, 
In the dark nights, will walk alone with me. 

CCLXXXII. 

"Mere idle words," the scoffing men will say; 
O foolish men! be quiet, go your way; 
The man, with his dead boy within his soul. 
Has ceased to be a denizen of clay. 

CCLXXXIII. 

The words you spoke to me before you died 
Are wet with the tears of the Crucified; 
The pledge I gave is now celestial grown. 
Because, through you by God 'tis sanctified. 

CCLXXXIV. 

Through you the Master surely spoke to me; 
No human words could fall so tenderly; 
I saw the Master's touch upon your face, 
As you went out into eternity. 

— 72 — 



CCLXXXV. 

They tell me, Tom, that you are dead to-day; 
That you have vanishVl, gone the unknown way: 
The soul, that God implants within the man. 
Defies the sepulchre with all its clay. 

CCLXXXVI. 

The disembodied men are always clear. 
To men that have the reverential fear; 
The man that looks, with the unseeing eye, 
Can never see the dead when they appear. 

CCLXXXVIL 

In death, with you, my boy, I wish to lie, 
Under the same grass, under the same sky; 
To have our dust, commingle in the grave 
Is all we'll ask for our mortality. 

CCLXXXVIII. 

Your grave is not far from the public way; 
The passing men may look upon your clay; 
Together, in that consecrated spot, 
The grass, on both of us, will grow some day; 

— 73 — 



CCLXXXIX. 

Perhaps without a stone above our head; 
We would rather have the tears that are shed, 
By some poor stranger that is passing by. 
To find, among the graves, his mother's bed. 

ccxc 

After this mortal coil has slipt from me. 
My bark shall pass upon the unknown sea; 
I know, I'll find you on the other shore. 
With your boyish smiles, waiting anxiously. 

CCXCI. 

The clasp of hands; perhaps a tear or two; 
Some talk of the old earth, the friends we knew; 
Until you spoke of the old alley-way, 
I did not know the sky was all of blue. 

CCXCTI. 

The moment that you placed your hand in mine, 
I knew, from the touch, that you were divine; 
And when I look'd upon your face again. 
I saw the glory on your features shine. 

— 74 — 



CCXCIIl. 

At first we slowly went, I knew not w^here. 
Until I grew accustomed to the air: 
I felt the Wonder that was in the place. 
And saw the Silence that was moving there. 

CCXCJV. 

Within the holy land, where all should go, 
Men often hanker for the days below; 
A mother smiles and tears, the valley road, 
The gardens where the roses used to grow. 

CCXCV. 

The vacant chair keeps at the lonely hearth: 
The mother's thoughts go to her dead boy's birth 
She gropes, unconscious that her boy is there, 
Denizen with her upon the earth. 

CCXCVI. 

The dead will never leave us lonely here: 
We may not see them, but they will be near: 
The man, that has the power of inner-sight. 
May penetrate the hidden atmosphere. 

— 75 — 



CCXCVII. 

And we will talk about the earth below, 

The boys you loved, the girls you used to know; 

But when we come to the old alley-way, 

I'll watch the raptures on your features glow. 

CCXCVIIL 

Can you remember now the inland sea? 
The stars that night were there for you and me; 
We watched the moon upon the distant waves, 
And listen'd to the bird upon the tree. 

CCXCIX. 

Martyrs and men of genius congregate. 
In the other world when the night is late. 
To talk of earth, the great men that they knew. 
Before they left the world of teen and hate. 

ccc. 

You knew genius; you had its flesh and bone; 
I've often heard your crooning monotone, 
In the lonely nights, underneath the trees. 
When you thought that you were there all alone. 

-76- 



CCCI. 

At night, we'll kneel before some holy shrine. 
To mingle with the men that there combine; 
The martyr'd men that shed their blood of old, 
To watch the features of the angels shine. 

CCCIL 

We'll keep near the great men that left their clay: 

The hand of Dante may upon you lay; 

The holy men that bled upon the earth 

Drip drops of blood for men that bleed to-day. 

cccin. 

Your love of music here you still retain; 
The music-men of earth need not complain; 
God sends his music to the willing ears, 
Before the dulcet men have holy pain. 

CCCIV. 

Over the great books that men wrote of yore, 
Re-written here the wiser men still pore; 
I saw you reading, where Beatrice stood. 
While Dante's tears fell near you on the floor, 

— 77 — 



cccv. 

The last book that attracted you below, 
Now blossoms where the higher blossoms blow; 
Beatrice was the last of whom you read, 
Before you beckon'd us that you must go. 

CCCVl. 

With a pure boyish heart you read before 
You left your shadow% standing at our door, 
What poor Francesca, of Paola said. 
Until, like Dante, you fell on the floor. 

CCCVII. 

At the shrine of the Holy Trinity, 
The Mother will be there with you and me; 
The stars, that shine upon your forehead now. 
Are shining where the Shepards used to be. 

CCCVIIT. 

Before I saw your face, the Mother came 
To take me to the altar of your fame; 
The youthful souls that kept their purity 
Around their altars shed immortal flame. 

-78- 



CCCIX. 

The Mother showed me where the island hes, 
Buih by God for the youthful souls that rise; 
I saw your shapely shallop on the shore. 
And your sweet features blooming in the skies. 

cccx. 

I saw the wave of hands, the floating hair; 
I heard the music that was crooning there; 
I saw your face the way it was before, 
I felt the purity of purer air. 

CCCXI. 

Since purified, on earth, you are the same; 
You went with the Father that for you came; 
After He pressed you gently on the lips. 
He left upon your face His holy flame. 

CCCXH. 

I saw it, in your coffin, all unknown. 

While I was bending over you alone; 

And when for the last time I press'd you there, 

I feit His breath that on your lips had blown. 

— 79 — 



CCCXIII. 

The Mother brought me to you full of grace; 
Your hair, wet with her tears, fell near my face; 
You had the ancient smiles when the Mother sai 
"The father and the son have found their place !" 

CCCXIV. 

When the Mother came you were on the shore; 
You were anxious, your eyes were moist ; before 
You pointed out to me the lonely way, 
You quickly pointed to the open door. 

CCCXV. 

What appear'd to us, on that lonely way, 
Need not be told to men within their clay; 
Although, perhaps it may be right to tell, 
Our thoughts, at times, went to the alley-way. 

CCCXVL 

These are the sacred things that yet may be. 
When I am put upon the lonesome sea; 
I dreamt this dream, within the alley-way. 
The lonesome night that you went there with me. 

— 80 — 



CCCXVTI. 

The dreams, that come to us, the wise men say, 
In lonely places, in the night or day, 
If hearken'd to. may be the word of God, 
To purify the man within his clay. 

CCCXVIIL 

I know that you are happy over there; 
A m.oment since, I saw your face, felt your hair: 
To-night I watch your shadow on the grass; 
Last night I sat beside your vacant chair. 

CCCXIX. 

Your smiles to me are just the same to-day. 
As they were when we went the alley-way; 
The purity of God that touched you there 
Celestialized for you on earth your clay. 

cccxx. 

Farewell, my boy! My sepulchre is near; 
Your father has for you the hidden tear; 
That father now is with you over there, 
Although you nightly whisper to him here. 

— 8i — 



CGCXXl. 

Since, with genius gifted, why longer stay. 
To have men bleed your blood within its clay? 
The blood, on you, that dript, fell from the cross, 
To pilot you along the lonely way. 

CCCXXIT. 

Men that are UKtde, like you, Tom, suffer here: 
Gentle natures, that now and then, appear. 
The men to whom God gives creative power. 
Should have an early sepulchre and bier. 

GGCXXin. 

Apart from men, they go their way alone: 
The solitary men, to men, unknown. 
That meditate, along their lonely way. 
Will some day feel the pelting of the stone. 

CCCXXIV. 

The peace for clay that in the grave is found 
Is never known upon the upper ground: 
The silence that is in the lonely grave 
Can never feel the weight of any sound. 
— 82 — 



cccxxv. 

Departed souls, purified, never die; 
Our love for those that in their grasses lie, 
Bedewing there for them that holy place. 
Is never absent from the vanish'd eye. • 

CCCXXVI. 

The verdiu'e, in the grass, upon you there, 
Wets, with the holy dew, your face and hair; 
At night while kneeling, where your grasses lie, 
The words you spoke to me pass through the air 

CCCXXVIL 

A passing word, Tom, the wind is full of rue; 
The skv to-night is destitute of blue; 
I find the grass upon your grave is wet. 
Without the fall of any rain or dew. 

CCCXXVIII. 

This humble tribute, on your grave I lay; 
It may be the only one I can pay; 
The hand of death is always at our door; 
The hearse, for me, may now be on the way. 

-83- 



CCCXXIX. 

The bird, now singing by the inland sea, 
Some nights ago, sang there for you and me; 
The moon that on the mountains is to shine 
Is shining where we never more shall be. 

cccxxx. 

Why so conjecture? The pure mountain-air 
Comes from the mountains, to my face and hair 
An hour ago, while in the alley-way, 
I know that you were walking with me there. 

CCCXXXI. 

The monumental stone will pass away; 
The hugest bust can not survive its clay; 
A word, that's from the heart, if rightly said. 
May give to dust the soul's immortal day. 

CCCXXXII. 

What of the words men carve upon a stone? 
What of the laurels that for men have grown? 
What of the flow'rs that in the deserts bloom, 
After the winds across their sands have blown? 

-84^ 



CCCXXXIII. 

In other hours, under happier skies, 
Some words of mine may fall, for you to rise. 
So that the thoughtful few shall always know, 
Where my poor boy within his ashes lies ! 

CCCXXXIV. 

This spring of rue, Tom, is all I have to-day 
(The accent of a soul can not decay). 
To consecrate for those who knew you here, 
The nights that we went down the alley-way. 

CCCXXXV. 

In the days to come, when the skies are near, 
Some words of mine may fall upon your ear. 
To vivify for both the alley-way, 
When both shall have a sepulchre and bier. 

CCCXXXVI. 

The nights that we went down the alley-way 
Have left a soul, absolved, within its clay; 
The vanish'd hand that now is stretching here 
Will nightly meet that soul upon its way. 

"85- 



CCCXXXVII. 

That hand will shine, until the other shore, 
Leaves a corpse, where your coffin was before; 
In death, as we go to the alley-way, 
We'll pass our shadows standing at the door. 

CCCXXXVIII. 

If the lights apoear. at the window-pane. 
The ancient faces may be there again; 
Your cheeks, I know, will have the heavy rue, 
When on their faces we shall see the pain. 

CCCXXXIX. 

Will they talk of us when the moon is oil. 
When you and I within the grave are one? 
And will they ever go the alley-way. 
To drop a tear for us when we are gone? 

CCCXL. 

It matters not; w^e'll go the common way; 
The heritage of earth is for a day; 
The soul, within the man, alone survives. 
Since God can never turn Himself to clay. 
— 86-^ 



CCCXLI. 

Why ask if tears are to be for us shed? 
The tears and roses will be at our head; 
The moon and stars, that on our grasses shine. 
Will always know the place where we are dead. 

CCCXTJI. 

To-day, I look'd upon your grass again; 
The flowers are dead; the heavy winds and rain 
Have swept across the little piece of earth. 
In which, some days ago, we had you lain. 

CCCXLIIL 

The fall of hail or snow or winds that rave 
Cannot disturb that boy within his grave; 
The gentle life, that now is lifeless there. 
The hand of God is always by to save. 

CCCX LI V. 

The soul, within that gentle boy of mine. 
Now flashes, where the higher altars shine; 
Within the holy place he knelt before. 
He left for me his sepulchre and shrine. 

-.-87- 



CCCXLV. 

He went, only an hour or two before, 
To wait for me beside the open door; 
The man upon the earth, that rightly sees. 
Is always looking at the other shore. 

CCCXLVI. 

The night-birds now are at the tarn and rill; 
The rising moon will soon be on the hill; 
Since lonesome here, what of the alley-way, 
To walk beside the steps that now are still? 

CCCXLVTI. 

Those silent steps may now forevermore 
Be nightly heard upon this lonesome floor; 
And when the moon has left the window-pane. 
The shadow still remains inside my door. 

CCCXLVIII. 

In the nights I shall always see you there, 
Near where my hand is resting on your chair; 
And when the stars are on the lonely hills, 
Your tears I know w^ill be upon my hair. 

— 88 — 



CCCXLIX. 

This is all that 1 have for you to-day; 
The laurel, on your grave, 1 hope to lay, 
Is growing now upon the alley-tree, 
Unknown to men that never go that way. 

CCCL. 

A final word, dear Tom! the wind is chill; 
The moon, at last, is rounding on the hill ; 
And so, within the moon-lit alley-way, 
I find that you are waiting for me still. 

CCCLI. 

This is the lesson here that men should know 
The human bends before the winds that blow; 
The grass that grows within the fields to-day, 
To-morrow wilts beneath a fall of snow. 

CCCLII. 

If we have reverence, while here we tread. 
The soul within the man will not be dead; 
The equity of Christ upon the cross. 
Within the hearts of nations should be bred. 



CCCLIII. 

Cardinal, if Christ in the llesh were here, 
Do yon think that England would have His ear. 
Against the farmers, fighting for their homes, 
While England only fights for gin and beer? 

CCCLIV. 

Yesterday, I thought I heard someone say : 
"That England always paves for God the way; 
And that the men she murdered on the plain 
Were only Dervishes, that never pray." 

CCCLV. 

The blood of God was shed foi you and I ; 
His blood was shed for all beneath the sky; 
Be cautious how you scourge a burgher's sod; 
To-morrow you may be wdiere he shall lie. 

CCCLVI. 

To-day your lordly England spills here gore. 
To bleed the poor upon a foreign shore; 
For every drop of burgher-blood that's shed, 
The wrath of Christ will on your nation pour, 

— 90 — 



CCCLVIl. 

For every drop that England now shall shed 
The hair will whiter grow upon her head; 
The grass is often conscious of the corpse, 
Before the corpse within the grave is dead. 

CCCLVIII. 

The half-goggled man and Rhodes had their way; 
V\'ithin the race of men there is decay; 
An empire, that has braved a thousand years. 
May be among the things of yesterday. 

CCCLIX. 

Your tears should fall for the brave men that die, 
For God and homes, beneath their native sky; 
Why should you turn their flesh into a couch. 
On which your Rhodes and Chamberlain may lie? 

CCCLX. 

Look at the men that have been petrified; 
Look at the men that for their lands have died; 
I ook at the blood that bleeds in weaker lands. 
And then look at the land that crucified! 

~9i — 



CCCLXL 

Cardinal, another word : Did you say, 
''That on our knees we must for England pray?" 
Biit since your England only fights for God, 
Why should we throw our orisons away? 

CCCLXII. 

*\Ve do not care to pray for Tommy's pain, 
While in a foreign land his bed is lain; 
A soldier in the army of the Lord, 
Of pains inflicted here wnll not complain. 

CCCLXIII. 

ihe sun, that shines to-day on England's head, 
Still finds the linen wet within her bed; 
To all, except the men of Tommy's blood, 
The gore upon her sheets is running red. 

CCCLXIV. 

C''^dinal, scan the sheets and go your way; 
The holy light will round your forehead play, 
While you are kneeling at the Holy Cross, 
To bless the sheets that England has to-day. 

— 92 — 



CCCLXV. 

Why desecrate the sacremental creed, 

To sanction here the men of beastial greed? 

The impenitent thieves upon the cross, 

To-day, behind their steps, would halt their speed. 

CCCLXVI. 

Chamberlain says : "We'll have the Zulus now !" 
The man, with a mother's lips on his brow. 
Still wants the tomahawk and scalping knife, 
To slit the skulls where little children bow. 

CCCLXVII. 

Though pinnacled, within ofificial place, 
To plume himself he'd crucify his race; 
To help him on the road to pelf our power, 
He'd spit to-day upon his sovereign's face. 

CCCLXVIII. 

This man has gash'd his nation to the bone; 
Among the nations she is all alone; 
With spade in hand, beside his sepulchre. 
He builds for her, her sepulchre and stone. 

— 93 — 



CCCLXIX. 

And yet for him men should have charity; 
The besotted conscience sees equity, 
In bolst'ring up the swag the pirates take, 
Until they make of it divinity. 

CCCLXX. 

The blood of Christ that from his cross ran red 
Is bleeding still where England has her tread; 
The nation that for plunder massacres 
Will soon be numbered with the dust that's dead. 

CCCLXXL 

England, a passing glance: look at your sky; 
Look at the skeletons that pass you by; 
The partial corpses, at your palace doors, 
Will soon be sleeping where their fathers lie. 

CCCLXXIL 

You ought to live, for you may justly reign. 
Provided your hands be not heavy lain 
On the nations; and that you first disgorge 
The plunder you have pillag'd from the slain. 

— 94 — 



CCCLXXlil. 

Your broken word., before the ink was dry, 
May still, in blood, be seen upon your sky; 
The skulls of the murdered men you have slain 
Are nightly grinning" where your pillows lie. 

CCCLXXIV. 

You should seek, at night, your old churchyard-walls. 
To listen to the voice that for you calls; 
The grass, that vegitates on moulded flesh, 
Reveals the fate that on the human falls. 

CCCLXXV. 

You should not pass the hat around to-day; 
In foreign lands what w^ll the people say? 
''England, a mendicant, at ahen doors. 
Begging for pence her crippled men to pay." 

CCCLXXVI. 

You should not sing Kipling's song over here; 
The morals of our people are severe; 
Besides the prince that banks in Downing street 
Can have for you the singers of the year. 

— 95 — 



CCCLXXVIL 

We do not like to hear immoral lays; 

We do not care to see immoral plays; 

We do not want to have impurity, 

Although the flag of England with them stays. 

CCCLXXVIII. 

England, we never went to you for bread; 
We bring our soldiers home when they are dead; 
We richly pension those they leave behind, 
To keep the linen clean upon their bed. 

CCCLXXIX. 

Why should our daughters, that have gone abroad. 
To pass their days upon an English sward. 
Ask of this land, whose manly men they spurned. 
Their foreign heritage for them to guard? 

CCCLXXX. 

We understand our daughters, over there, 
May, now and then, look at the royal chair; 
Before their fathers dug the nuggets up, 
Their mothers scrubbed upon a wooden stair. 

-96- 



CCCLXXXI. 

Why are their fingers in our pockets lain? 

Their tears, no doubt, are sincere for the slain; 

The man of Kimberly is rich enough, 

To build and man the ship they call the "Maine." 

CCCLXXXIL 

Adair, in Donegal, the English know, 
Turn'd the peasants out in a night of snow; 
Why does he not open his money bags, » 

Instead of begging Vvdiere our waters flow? • 

CCCLXXXIIL 

For titles, pleasing to the outward eye. 
Our daughters drop the gold as they pass by; 
The titled men, that wear their robes to-day, 
To-morrow in their couches sickly lie. 

CCCLXXXIV. 

Daughters, we regret 3^ou went OA^er there; 
Our men, at home, require no cushion'd chair; 
The parchment-men would never marry you, 
Except to build for them a golden stair. 

— 97 — 



CCCLXXXV. 

England, you stand, companionless, alone; 
^'onr memory may be a piece of stone; 
The sculptured beast, above Egyptian sand, 
May still exist when London is unknown. 

CCCLXXXVL 

The masses h^xQ no friendship for you here: . 
We have a few that hold your empire dear: 
The men that used to harry Washington 
Will, now and then, among us reappear. 

CCCLXXXVIL 

For men that ape your manners over there. 
Within this land we have no time to spare; 
When they come back. Avith their cold foreign drone. 
We find their vvigs have always alien hair. 

CCCLXXXVIIL 

The hour will come when you will be forlorn. 
No nation, that upon the earth is born. 
Will take the hand of piracy and greed. 
That in the darkness plies the Unicorn. 

-98- 



CCCLXXXIX. 

To-day you think you have the burghers' sun: 

In defeat, victory is often won; 
. The tyrant's hand that's wet with behed blood, 
^ Will rot, until his empire is undone. 

cccxc. 

The Russian shadow, dark'ning at your door. 
Will still keep billeted upon your floor, 
Ijntil the traffic, that is not in ships. 
Shall generate for you a shipless shore. 

CCCXCL 

The words that I h-ave said are free from hate; 
I would not hurt the worm that's at your gate 
r would not hurt a hair upon your head ; 
Hut I would have you scan the book of Fate. 

CCCXCIL 

I'd have you bend, beneath the mystic tree; 
■ Fd have you think, at night, most soberly. 

That human flesh, although of English mould, 
[ Has still the cancer of mortality. 

-99- 
t off 



• CCCXCIIL 

I'd have you know, what all men here may see, 
That you are treacling on uncertainty; 
And that the righteous hand alone can wave 
The flag that penetrates eternity. 

CCCXCIV. 

Cardinal, scan the banner of your race 
(Not from l^eneath; 'twill moisten any place); 
But if you feel the drops that from it drips. 
Be quick to wipe what falls upon your face. 

cccxcv. 

Though of the ancient faith, I'd rather die, 
And rot to-day where sunless ashes lie, 
Than ask for prayers from those that massacre. 
The men that yet may blossom in the sk; 



cv. 



CCCXCVI. 

I have faith in the equity of God, 
And in his church where holy men have trod 
Although your blessings on the victor fall 
The tears of Christ will never wet his sod. 

— lOO — 



CCCXCVII. 

Your England^ in the end, ol course, should win; 
She has the cannons and the many Lien; 
But when the day is done, the dead men's bones 
Will upwards rise — her monument of sin ! 

CCCXCVIII. 

The nations of the ancient world are dead ; 
Their ashes now is nearing England's bed; 
The grace of God. that breathe, but equity 
Alone can keep the ashes from her head. 

CCCXCIX. 

Win she have grace? Well, let her go and kneel. 
Until the flesh shall perish at her heel ; 
Until the nations that she crucified 
Ask of God, on her lips, to press His seal. 

CD. 

Men of God, the words I have said are true: 
Impassioned w^ords, like blasts, make the skies blue 
if men of God, but heed the Master here. 
They will be always with the fallen crew. 
— lOI — 



OCT rd 19UU ^^j 

''The fallen crew?" The men that fall shall rise; 
Their names, in flames, appear upon the skies; 
The tyrant that imbrutes his hands to-day. 
To-morrow in forgotten ashes lies. 

CDIL 

■ Deep within the graves of the martyr'd dead. 
The tears of Christ, will there for them be shed; 
The rain that falls upon a tyrant's grave, 
Will rot the flesh and hair upon his head. 

CDIII. 

The equity of God can never die; 

God's men may perish, but where their bones lie, 

A consecration falls upon the earth. 

Until the earth itself shall be a sky. 

CDIV. 

These martyr'd men are with us here to-day; 
In the darker nights we may hear them say : 
"Marathon, Bunker Hill and Spion Kop 
Are beacons that can never lead astray. 

102 












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